Annie’s Attic Mysteries is a series of novels written a group of authors. The series features Annie Dawson as the main character and began publication in 2010 when the series first novel The Lady in the Attic was published.

The Lady in the Attic

The Lady in the Attic is the first book in Annie’s Attic Mysteries written by Tara Randel. It is a quick read with a fascinating story; it is the story of a young woman lost in the world, finding herself and a place in the society and life after the demise of her husband. It is also a mystery of finding the identity of a woman in a piece of needlework.

The story is set in Stony Point, Maine and we first meet Annie Dawson, a young lady who is yet to come to terms with the death of her husband, Wayne over a year ago. After a year she has sold the business, she and her husband operated and spends most of the time alone at home crocheting. For a while, her daughter needed her after she had undergone surgery, but that’s passed now, and she sits at home alone, lost in her imaginations, and grieving for her husband.

One day she gets a call from her grandmother lawyer who informs her that Grey Gables, a home that Annie’s family owned for many generations had been left to her. Upon receiving the news about her inheritance, she travels to Stony Point, Maine to inspect the house and make a decision on what to do with the house and its contents. When she arrives in Grey Gables, she finds out that the house requires some extensive work to bring it back to the shape just in case she decides to sell it. A girl that Annie had known for many years from the summer’s holidays she had spent at Grey Gables now lives next door and is divorced. As Annie scouts the town, she stumbles upon an old friend, Beth Ann who later invites her to join their needlecraft club.

Anticipating to making more friends in this small town, Annie attends the club, but instead of making all friends, she also makes one enemy, Stella. Annie can’t contemplate what she did to make Stella dislike her so much but what she knows is that it takes a long time for people of Maine to accept outsiders, and so does Stella.

After discovering a new Betsy Original needlepoint in the attic, Annie sets out to find out who the woman was in the piece. She gets the help of the Hook and Needle Club in tracking down the mystery of the lady in the attic. Will she find out the identity of the woman in the attic? Will she sell her family house and return to Texas where her daughter wants to be? What else does Annie Dawson find in Gram’s things?

This story is charming, warm, fun, sweet and mysterious without being overly sweet, sappy, or formulaic. The main character, Annie Dawson had spent her most of her summers with her grandmother in Maine, and enjoying the company of a friend, Alice. She had fun doing all the projects that her grandma set up for them as well as exploring her grandma’s big house and regularly visiting the beach by the sea. These descriptions are so vivid such that you will find yourself simulating in your mind every single description that the author makes in the book.

So many events have happened over the years, and Annie finds herself in Texas, widowed and with only her daughter by her side. The grief takes control over her, and she ends up selling the business her, and her husband ran together. On the other hand, her daughter LeeAnn is married, and she is a mother of twins, and even though she accepted her mother’s help with the kids. After the surgery, she informs her mom that everything it’s going to be okay and that she and her twins will be okay without Annie’s help.

Annie’s grandmother passes on while LeeAnn, Annie’s daughter is having her surgery and Annie doesn’t attend the funeral since she has to take care of LeeAnn’s kids. Annie had always spoken to her grandmother every week but had not seen her for many years.

Medals in the Attic

Medals in the Attic book two in Annie’s Attic Mysteries written by Cathy Elliot. In this second installment, we meet Annie Dawson still in Maine living at her grandmother’s home, Grey Gables. She finds it almost impossible leave until the entire attic is cleaned up and decides what she should do with the inherited property. She has made many friends and also made enemies, and this makes her feel that she has been slightly accepted. Annie and her good old friend Alice are in the attic trying to locate an afghan that Annie had crocheted when she was a small girl.

The crochet has to be there since it appears that her grandmother never trashed anything away. She is searching for something so that she can donate to the local Church auction that is around the corner. Annie had hoped to have an afghan complete, but it appears it is going slowly. She finds a photo that may or maybe not of importance, and as she is ready to leave, her cat Boots causes the carpet to roll to unroll.

As she is putting the carpet back into place, she notices a box just behind the carpet roll. The box appears to have belonged to her grandfather, but inside she finds two medals and some photographs. She then recognizes one of the medals as a purple heart, but she doesn’t recognize the second one. Who could be the owner of these medals? She knows that the photographs don’t belong to her grandfather since his are in a frame and displayed. The question is, who are these two people in the photos? One resembles her grandmother but not enough details to make the recognition. Will Annie figure out who the real owners of the medal are? How do the two medals affect her family and why would their grandparents hide them?

All Gabriel Allon fans will be eagerly anticipating this one - your favourite spy is back in The New Girl, coming to bookshelves in mid-July. In this one, a girl is kidnapped from an exclusive private school in Switzerland and Gabriel Allon is brought on board to find her. More Details.

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if you are a fan of Jack Reacher you need to read the "Peter Ash" series by Nick Petrie. Endorsed by Lee Child himself, this is a fantastic book series and is the best recommendation I can give for any fans of Reacher. More details.

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If you’re a fan of standalone thrillers then be sure to read any of the standalones by Brad Parks. The guy is a master! I’ve read over 50 different authors of standalone thrillers in the last year and no-one stands out like Brad. More Details.

Did You Know…

Dean Koontz won an Atlantic Monthly Fiction Competition when he was a senior in college. He has an estimated number of over 400 million copies sold and his work has been published in more than 38 languages all over the world. His books have topped New York’s bestsellers’ list thirteen times and he also has to his credit of becoming the bestseller in countries as diverse as Sweden and Japan.